


Hiding in Plain Flight

by TheosOxonian



Category: Sherlock (TV), The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:29:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29894943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheosOxonian/pseuds/TheosOxonian
Summary: "But as he lay there, he realised the really fucking disturbing thing was the space wasn’t quite empty.  There was something there that when he looked at it, glowed and spat like the logs in Mycroft’s fire place.  And the power of that warm, unwanted gift chilled him to the fucking bone."___So having read some Mycroft/Malcolm fic a few years back, I found it broke my brain.  In a good way.  The way that means you think it's the best idea ever and spend weeks contemplating their backstory, and gradually realise that they'd actually have met years ago...just as Malcolm was creating the New Labour brand and Mycroft was a junior spook.  But this is Mycroft, so he still has houses and money and drivers.  And an umbrella.I give you 1995.
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Malcolm Tucker
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	Hiding in Plain Flight

25th December 1995 – Central London – 00.11 am

“Oh Christ, what the fuck do you want?” Malcolm demanded halting on the steps as a figure emerged from the shadows into the orange glow of a streetlight. 

“St Martin in the Fields,” Mycroft observed conversationally with a vague nod of his head toward the toward where the church doors stood hidden in the depths of the porticoed entrance. “Somehow I’d assumed you were Catholic.”

“You know I’m not one of those papist kiddie-fiddlers,” Malcolm said as congregants jostled past him murmuring polite apologies or offering seasons greetings, and with rising irritation he moved to stand in the lee of a rain slicked column, leaning a shoulder against the stained stone. 

He stared up at where Mycroft stood placidly on the top step, the skirt of his long coat shimmering with beaded rain drops and an umbrella resting in the crook of his elbow, and sighed. Half lit by the streetlight, the high pediment casting his face into shade, he looked like he was a fedora and a femme fatale away from something classically noir. This tendency Mycroft was developing to behave like a hackneyed overblown spook rather than a home office civil servant was starting to get pretty fucking old, pretty fucking fast. And he really didn’t have the energy to deal with the drama and precognisance tonight.

He let his eye linger on the umbrella for a moment, contemplating the urge to ram it so hard up Mycroft’s over-privileged arse his head would look like a Bavarian ceremonial helmet. Because contemplating that was a hell of a lot more comfortable than letting his eyes linger on the way elegant, gloved fingers curled around the carved wood, or the how the stylish slim cut trousers kissed the polished shoes. Or how this man made him want to run his hands over delicate, expensive things and see who fell to their knees first. 

Reaching into his pocket he drew out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, letting the familiar dry taste stall the words that were forming on his tongue, suddenly very fucking afraid of the wistful urge that had led him here. To a rite he half remembered from listening to the wash of words pressed up against his mam’s arm, comforted by the warmth of her coat on his lap and the impossibility of reindeer on the roof. The sacred and profane mingling effortlessly in the mind of a sleepy child. 

He’d intended to slip away from here, out into the night and the increasing dark of suburban streets, his moment of need unwatched and unrecognised. But instead he was lingering here with Mycroft’s sharp blue eyes staring down at him, assessing and judging and seeing fuck knows what. 

The stillness he’d found in the dim nave vanished in a sharp swell of loathing, and he turned resentfully away. Hating the arrogant permanence of the building he was leaning against, and the self-importance of this city, and the twatish identikit stuffed suits that ran it. And most of all he hated the weight of everything he’d left to run here. 

“Fuck off, I’m not bloody well anything,” he muttered, flipping his collar up against the clouds that hung heavy in the chill morning air as he set off toward the nearest cab rank.

“Indeed,” Mycroft agreed evenly, falling into step, the rain stopping as the umbrella extended itself over his head.

“So why the hell run with that as your opening gambit?” Malcolm demanded, quite happy to pick any fight going. Because if Christmas tradition was worth anything then right now someone should be drunk and shouting, and about two hours from throwing up in a gutter. And he wasn’t drunk and with a quiet office he had no one to shout at. And it had been eight years since he’d hauled his way out of his last gutter.

“Yes, to be frank, religion isn’t one of my preferred conversational arenas,” Mycroft observed.

“Then why bring it up at all?” Malcolm asked, as he drew in another breath of the cigarette, the exhaled smoke coiling lazily beneath the umbrella before being snatched away into the chill of the night. 

“The weather seemed far too quotidian,” Mycroft offered, stepping lightly along the pavement, carefully avoiding the gathering puddles and loose paving stones that were steadily soaking the cuffs of Malcolm’s trousers.

“Too quotidian? Do you ever listen to yourself?” Malcolm demanded. “It’s like someone’s animated a thesaurus, shoved a boatload of methane up its arse and now all you can do is wander around leaking shit smelling smugness at every turn.”

“I don’t believe reference books, even animated ones, have an arse,” Mycroft offered, slowing as they approached a ragged line of people. Late night revellers in far too little clothing and the remnants of the opera crowd in far too much fur swaying and listing uncomfortably together. “Your metaphors need work.”

“Yeah well, it’s Christmas, I’m taking a day off,” Malcolm muttered as he tossed the still glowing cigarette toward the grate of a drain. “So maybe you should just metamorphose yourself the fuck off,” he concluded, adding two fingers in a pointed gesture as he joined the end of the ragtag queue. 

“Charmed,” Mycroft said evenly as he came to stand at his side. Malcolm glared at the perfectly straight back, resenting the relaxed balance of slim shoulders and the poise that came so naturally to a certain class of people. Resenting even more that easy self assurance was up there with an air of ambiguity when it came to things he found intriguing. Because finding inscrutable cocky shits attractive only ever seemed to lead to him being shafted royally and never quite knowing why. With a sigh for his own crap taste in sexual partners he let his shoulders slump in resignation and didn’t even object when the familiar dark grey car floated smoothly to a halt as they reached the front of the queue. 

“Any particular reason you made us wait in the pissing rain for ten minutes?” Malcolm demanded as he slid over the seat, the dampness of his coat squeaking across the cream leather, the smell of the valeted interior and all its pristine plasticity disconcertingly sharp and fresh after the muted tones of the night. 

“Yes. You become annoyed when things don’t run to your preconceived ideas,” Mycroft observed as the door was shut behind him, sealing them into a space that was warm and dark.

“Oh go fuck yourself,” Malcolm muttered as he turned away, watching the lights of London dance a fractal pattern through the rain streaked window. It was times like this he really fucking hated Mycroft Holmes. Who let his manipulations hang out for all to see in a way that disarmed the righteous anger and resentment he felt was more than his due. 

It might be true that he liked it when the world ran to his rules. And he would have been ten times more pissed off if the car had been waiting for them outside the church rather than at the end of a taxi queue. But he didn’t have to fucking like that he was being tugged around like a predictable marionette puppet.

“You really are taking the day off,” Mycroft observed with a raised eyebrow as he took in the light insult and the expansive silence that followed. 

“Drop me at home,” Malcolm demanded as the car turned smoothly on to The Mall. “Turn off at Hyde Park Corner if you would mate,” he directed, raising his voice as he tapped on the driver’s shoulder for emphasis. 

“Come home with me,” Mycroft said, hands folded into his lap, voice uncharacteristically soft and gentle, the tone making the words a question and not a command. 

“Why?” Malcolm asked, unable to stop the inane query slipping from his lips as he glanced over at where Mycroft sat in perfectly still silhouette, the reds and oranges and blues of streetlights and traffic lights and gaudy illuminations framing him in a halo of changing, shimmering colour

“It’s raining? It’s Christmas? You’ve taken the day off?” Mycroft offered, his tone once again its usual studied disinterest.

Malcolm turned away again and pretended not to notice when the driver turned left, rather than right at the Wellington Arch Roundabout. Given he was sat quiet and compliant being driven to Mycroft’s home any answer he could have given felt redundant, and so no answer at all felt like some kind of victory. Even if it was only the kind where silence meant there was always just a little sliver a doubt. Plausible deniability. The watchwords of his life, mingling with the smell of Mycroft’s aftershave and damp wool in a way that some part of him found disconcertingly comforting. 

The wide avenue was silent as they stepped out of the car, the bare canopies of the old trees stretching heavy over the road and dulling the sounds of the never sleeping city. The chequerboard hallway was quieter still as he hovered in the dim light, bending awkwardly to unlace his shoes as Mycroft waited patiently for his coat and then expectantly for his jacket, slipping them onto heavy wooden hangers that adorned the cast iron coat stand. 

He followed Mycroft through a twist of corridors, the lengthening silence and the chill of the house rising up through his stockinged feet making him feel uncomfortably vulnerable. He paused just inside the threshold of a sitting room he’d never seen before as Mycroft turned on a brass lamp, gentle light bouncing back from polished wood and picture frames. A large settee and matching armchairs lined the edge of a deep Persian rug and he moved to spread himself out on the sofa, kicking his feet lazily toward an antique coffee table as he plastered an easy grin on his face. Because he’d been bullshitting his way through life for far too long to be visibly intimidated by the display of moneyed historical legitimacy the arse called a home. Even if each newly revealed room seemed to add to the weight on his chest and shifted Mycroft just a little bit further away. 

“Do make yourself comfortable,” Mycroft observed as he walked toward the fireplace, setting a match to a perfectly arranged pile of kindling, watching for a few minutes as the fire caught hold before adding two pieces of wood from a basket beside the hearth. 

“I did,” Malcolm agreed as he took in the décor. This room was less formal than other parts of the house, the suite a lightly patterned cloth rather than the stiff leather of the reception rooms, and the gilded frames of sonorous portraiture abandoned in favour of muted landscapes and a collection of photographs. He let his gaze linger briefly on the photos, tracking time’s progress through stiff, frozen moments. Sepia tints merging into a black and white flapper’s bob and then a perfect beehive, until the family parade ended with two small boys in the muted colours of 70’s printing. More interested than he cared to admit but not wanting to be caught looking, he pulled his eyes away and glanced around the room. 

A book rested on the arm of the chair nearest the fire and a single coaster adorned the Queen Anne table that peeked out beyond its legs. No tree stood in the corner and there were no lights or tinsel. Not even a tasteful sprig of holly tucked into a picture frame. As realisation settled over him he shifted uncomfortably and found himself moving to the edge of the sofa where the possibility of flight felt easier. This room was Mycroft’s domain and the only thing out of place, the only fucking decoration in this bleak and barren space, was him. Like some piece of cheap tat in an off-the peg suit, a stocking-filler amusement to be played with until Mycroft fucked-off to wherever the real presents were. 

A familiar unease settled over him, as he acknowledged that he’d been picked up off the street like a two-bit whore and driven here to brighten up Mycroft’s pathetic parlour for a few hours. He knew he should leave, should pick up his dignity and march the fuck out of the room and all the way back to the front door and slam it satisfactorily behind him. Except his dignity was waging its on-going war with whatever stirred to life each time he saw an ache in those ice blue eyes. And he knew that even if he did slam the front door hard enough to splinter wood, the sound would never make it back here to the ears of the besuited git stood by the fireplace like a reject from a fucking E. M Forster novel. 

“You know this is a fucking cliché?” Malcolm spat out maliciously, waving a finger in a vague circle. “Delicate antique furniture and floral print sofas, all tastefully beefed-up by the masculine tones of your curtains. It couldn’t scream more queen if you had Freddie Mercury reanimated into a pair of his tightest trousers and put on a loop in the corner.”

Mycroft stiffened slightly as he leant against the mantelpiece, pushing himself away with a slight sniff. “He lived only a few streets from here,” he observed quietly as he made his way over to a decanter and poured himself a drink.

Malcolm raised his eyebrows in a half remorseful shrug, accepting the rebuke in silence and meeting that cool gaze as Mycroft’s hand hovered for a long moment before replacing the crystal stopper. It was his own form of malice, the unspoken reminder of Malcolm’s weakness and the knowledge he could easily have poured a second glass. Collapsed time around him like he was bloody Scrooge, the past, present and future swirling in uneasily faint divisions. 

They watched each other as the silence continued, Mycroft sipping at his drink as some old clock marked out the beat of each moment, minutes passing in the gentle click and roll of well oiled wheels. And as Malcolm toyed once again with the idea of leaving he looked at Mycroft, properly looked at him for once, in an unexpected pair of striped socks and prosaically sombre tie, the auburn hints in his hair picked out in the flickering light of the fire. Those long fingers delicately cradling the glass as the cuff of a sleeve stretched up to reveal skin as soft as silk. 

He thought of his own house, where a fuck-ton of cards were strung out along its open plan length like the lines of strategic alliances they were. And though he’d be traipsing unwilling to Bexley for dinner, to make polite conversation with his arse of a brother-in-law and tear paper off the latest political bestseller from Waterstones because it was the only thing his sister thought he might want, even his clichéd Better Homes and Gardens pristine white box of a house had some sense of other people in it.

“So wher’you off to tomorrow?” he asked.

“Today,” Mycroft corrected, the single word his only offering.

Malcolm glanced down at the floor, digging his toes into the rug and watching the shifting tones of the pile. Across the rug the incongruous socks caught his attention, and he glanced back up at Mycroft finding himself suddenly swimming in eyes that were carefully, tentatively hungry. And with that his dignity gave up the fight, and fucked right off. Because that ache was back in Mycroft’s eyes, and the silence of the unanswered question seemed to speak of wishes and longing. And he’d no fucking idea whether Mycroft was playing him like a puppet, but he sure as hell he didn’t know how to refute that look.

“Och, come here you big poof,” he said with a sigh, pushing himself back in his seat as Mycroft moved swiftly, glass abandoned on the corner of the coffee table as he slipped into Malcolm’s lap, knees bracketing his hips, his body a light, tentative weight. 

Malcolm closed his eyes as Mycroft carded his fingers through the curls of his hair, and gave up thinking about any of this as he instinctively pulled him closer. Gave up worrying about all the things the man made him feel, beyond the visceral delight of manicured nails across his scalp and the eager interest his body took in the weight he pulled willingly onto his thighs.

Reaching up he caught hold of a wandering hand, wrapping his fingers around the slim wrists, grip hard at first and then softening as he rubbed his thumb along the delicate tracery of veins to where they faded into smooth skin. Slowly turning Mycroft’s hand he cradled it’s weight as he removed the simple silver cufflink, folding away body warmed cotton to gradually bare an ivory arm to his gaze. 

He paused as he reached the elbow, drawing a finger down the underside of Mycroft’s arm as he lifted the limb, pressing his lips to a wrist that smelt of bergamot and mint. A rush of familiar heat flooded through him and he bent to lick at the skin, letting his lips trail lightly over Mycroft’s palm, feeling him shiver as he passed over the pad and drew the middle finger into his mouth. He let it rest against his tongue for a moment, listening to Mycroft’s breathing quicken as he pressed more firmly, offering a provocative hint of something he’d sworn he would never give. He glanced upward and met eyes that were dark and intense, Mycroft’s earlier hesitation burned away in a desire that caught and flared his own. 

The scented skin drifted away as cool fingers traced over the shell of his ear and around to the nape of his neck where Mycroft’s hand came to rest with a steady warmth. He tilted his head, following the silent direction, and was rewarded with a kiss that tasted of raspberries and whisky and lit him up with a desire for all kinds of things he shouldn’t want. It ended all too soon, and he let out a murmur of protest, feeling Mycroft’s amused smile against his lips as he bent to kiss him again. Mycroft’s hands moved to cup his face, fingers trailing the line of his jaw and dipping to stroke his neck, and Malcolm let himself relax into the gentle touch. A touch that was comforting and fragile, and far too much like everything he’d been seeking tonight to feel even halfway safe.

He parted his lips, coiling a firm arm around Mycroft’s waist as he pushed up against him, seeking that deeper, darker something that had always shimmered between them. The thing that was fight and fire, and he knew how to ride, that left no time and space for doubt and anxious, unspoken needs. But the tongue that met his own remained soft and slow, and he gave up the struggle before it even began, letting himself be drawn away into a place where soft murmurs of pleasure and the crackle of the fire smoothed time into an easy drift.

As the clock somewhere in the dim room rang out a half-chime Mycroft pulled away, reaching out a finger to trace the line of Malcolm’s swollen lips. “Come upstairs,” he said softly, bending to breathe the words against Malcolm’s ear.

The shiver they produced was answer enough, and with a whimper he’d deny until his dying breath Malcolm arched up to steal a last soft kiss as Mycroft slipped from the sofa and set the fireguard in place. He found himself once again following Mycroft through the house, along a wide corridor that flanked a glazed atrium and onto a staircase that creaked and shifted beneath their weight.

“Christ, how many bloody stairs has this place got?” Malcolm found himself asking as he stumbled clumsily onto a dim half-landing where a suit of armour stood sentinel in the shadows. 

“Ninety two,” Mycroft said pausing to allow Malcolm to find his balance. “However, if you meant how many staircases the answer is seven; one at either end of the house leading to the lower and upper galleries, the back stairs that lead from the kitchen to each floor, and the single flight to the attic rooms.”

“Naturally,” Malcolm murmured shaking his head at the sheer surreality of this place as they turned onto a balustraded gallery, the smooth wood of the stairs once again giving out to the pile of a carpet runner. He was momentarily disconcerted as Mycroft opened a door on the left of the landing and switched on the light, but as the room was bathed in a flood of illumination he had just enough time to take in the familiar an expanse of white linen among dark mahogany before Mycroft dimmed the light with a murmured apology, the room vanishing into a collection of shapeless patterns.

They stood in awkward silence for a moment, Malcolm briefly hating how this house turned him around and left him dizzy and disorientated. But as Mycroft shifted uneasily, making an aborted move toward him he found himself wondering instead just how often Mycroft did this sort of thing. He was good with the intimacy, that near prescient mind coupled with the inherited certainty he could take what he wanted meant the sex was mutually satisfying. Fuck that it was more than satisfying. But the stuff around the edges he didn’t seem to know how to navigate. Like the mild embarrassment of undressing in front of someone you only half knew and the sheer the tragic amusement of a swaying, half-hard cock as you wrestled with a pair of socks. The things you only learned if people stuck around, or were ever around in the first place. 

“Get your kit off,” Malcolm directly softly as he turned away and began discarding his own clothes on top of a low chest, not turning back until he’d tamped down the impulse to draw Mycroft into his arms. Because hugging a fully clothed bloke in his bedroom was the wrong side a great big sparkling line he’d drawn years ago. 

Settling onto the bed with more confidence than he felt he kicked the duvet away and earned himself a reproachful glare as Mycroft came to stand by the edge of the bed, glancing momentarily toward the wall mounted lamps.

“Christ, you’re overthinking this, just turn the bloody things on,” Malcolm said despairingly, tempering his words with the brush of knuckles across Mycroft’s bare thigh, because here again was a simple little thing Mycroft struggled to handle. “If we’re bloody doing this, I want to see what I’m doing.”

“Shouldn’t that be who you’re doing,” Mycroft asked with a touch of his usual self-assurance.

“That too,” Malcolm agreed with an involuntary smile as he reached for Mycroft’s hand and drew him down, tangling them together in a mess of arms and legs where he let himself linger for a moment. Because hugging a naked bloke in his bedroom was just basic good manners, and it didn’t hurt that press of warm skin felt seriously fucking amazing.

Lifting Mycroft’s head from where it rested against his neck he traced a finger along the line of his jaw as he stared into his face. Mycroft wasn’t conventionally attractive, his nose was a little too large and hawkish, and there were hints of soft flesh that suggested his body had once been fuller and rounder. And out of the layered armour of his suits it was all too easy to see the gangly, freckled kid he’d once been. But for all that he still stirred Malcolm. The pale eyes that saw far more than they ever revealed were a fucking beautiful mystery, and even without the suits the sheer fucking power that rolled off the man was nothing short of intoxicating. And it really didn’t hurt knowing that Mycroft wanted him. Because with all that he could ignore the way his heart beat faster when Mycroft looked at him fondly, and he could definitely ignore the part of him that was starting to develop a fucking freckle kink. 

Stifling a murmured endearment he claimed Mycroft’s lips again, and settled back onto the comfortable mattress and expensive sheets. Content for the moment to sprawl out and be kissed thoroughly and deeply, to curl a leg over Mycroft’s own and draw his foot along the curve of a calf, letting the movement rock his hips, pushing them together in an idle rhythm. Because in this acquiescent, placid state he didn’t have to worry about reaching for things he didn’t trust himself to want. 

Mycroft indulged him for a time, resting on forearms that bracketed his head as they teased and soothed each other, exchanging kisses that made him edgy and achy and perfectly fucking convinced he wasn’t ever leaving this bed. Pulling away Mycroft bent to lazily kiss his chest, lingering over the natural curve of a pectoral muscle as he ran a thumb over the nipple, eyes lighting up in delight as Malcolm shivered and arched into the touch. The movement pressed his cock into Mycroft’s stomach and with the fresh beat of arousal he abandoned his attempt at submission. Pushing up onto his elbows he flipped Mycroft onto his back, intending to kick his legs apart and settle between them, to take them both in hand and wank them off. Ease this sudden, clawing restlessness in a rush of hands and heat and fluids, and to fuck off home before he actually got too used to expensive linens and the feel of simply being wanted.

But as Mycroft dropped back onto the pillows with a rush of breath, Malcolm found himself pausing as he reached for the bedside drawer, distracted as Mycroft blinked up at him, vulnerable in his momentary surprise. He let his hand fall, arm resting lightly across Mycroft’s chest as the moment lengthened between them. A tender smile threatened the corner of his lips as the heat inside him banked down to a fond, unfamiliar warmth that left him with a new sort of an ache. One that he had no fucking idea how to ease other than by settling his hands over warm, soft skin and not letting go. He broke the gaze, glancing down the length of Mycroft’s body, the tones of him a few shades warmer than his own northern paleness and reached out to curl his fingers around Mycroft’s leaking arousal, intending to tease for just a moment, to let the throb and pulse spark him alight again and return them to familiar ground. But as Mycroft’s eyes slipped shut in a shudder of grateful pleasure he found himself bending to nuzzle at Mycroft’s cheek, and the soft endearment that finally found voice made Mycroft tremble lightly, the shiver rippling against his own skin, sinking into him where it shook and shimmered. 

He swallowed against the unbidden and unwelcome swell of affection, and felt his lips curl into a snarl as he reached out to grip Mycroft’s hair, tilting his head into a hard, punishing kiss, plundering his mouth for any hint of a fire he could spark to burn away the softness that kept creeping between them. But Mycroft only arched up into the kiss and met him with his own heat and hunger, letting Malcolm search fruitlessly for the familiar bite of uneasy, bitter desire. Mycroft gripped his neck and upper arm with a bruising pressure he could fight and kick against, retuning Malcolm’s anger bite for bite, waiting out those moments when the fear fled and their kisses would turn tender, when Mycroft’s grip would ease and finger tips would dance across his skin. Gradually, patiently, fucking _knowingly_ calming him down. 

He tried to summon the anger back. Tried to remind himself that he was going to regret this in the morning when the memory of just how easily Mycroft had played him squirmed uncomfortably under his skin. But with those lips resting against his own, shaping to form his own name in an exhale of breath, he couldn’t feel anything but pathetically fucking grateful. Because Mycroft neither feared nor fed from his emotions, and the space that left in the battle ground of his head felt almost like acceptance.

He found himself reaching out with gentle hands, letting himself explore what lay beyond the dread of losing himself in the desires he’d carried around like a burden for twenty years. The unnerving, pathetic place inside him that just wanted to fucking care for someone. So he gave himself over to tasting pale, freckled skin, returning frequently to reassuring lips that opened so pliant and willingly, whenever whatever this was threatened to overwhelm him. And as he explored he let found himself contemplating the lines he’d drawn, the latticed framework that stood as a shield around that place inside him. Because the sound of that cultured voice catching and breaking with pleasure was feeding it, letting it expand in his chest until he felt skittery and shivery and far too light for his place in this world

Easing back onto his knees Malcolm contemplated Mycroft’s arousal, reaching out almost lazily to touch him, running a thumb over the sensitive tip, playing with the clear fluid that gathered there. He stared down at where it lingered on his skin, and unsure whether the fluttering, bright thing in his stomach was desire or anxiety he tentatively sucked at his thumb, risking a glance up at Mycroft as he found the sweet taste not unpleasant. Mycroft’s arm was thrown across his eyes, almost as though the darkness could calm the rapid breaths that lifted his chest in an erratic rhythm, and reassured by the momentary concealment Malcolm dipped his head and let his tongue reach out. With a whimper and a shudder Mycroft tensed beneath him, the muscles of his stomach fluttering and thighs trembling against the urge to thrust as Malcolm, breathing just as rapidly as Mycroft, let his lips close around the head. 

He stilled then, suddenly paralysed by a rush of embarrassment, having no real fucking idea what he was doing or quite how far he was prepared to take this. Mycroft’s arm was still thrown over his face, fingers digging into the flesh of his shoulder as he struggled for control, and from somewhere beneath the mortification of having another man’s cock stuck awkwardly between his lips Malcolm felt a familiar rush of power fuelled adrenaline. Because he knew what that fight for control felt like from the other side, knew what it was to believe you’d give up anything for the press of heat and pressure. And right this moment he fucking owned Mycroft Holmes. 

Emboldened he lowered his mouth again, drawing Mycroft in as far as he dared. It was still a strange sensation, just like in that Edinburgh alley twenty years ago, jaw stretched, teeth pressed into his own lips, panicky breaths through his nose. But Mycroft’s sheets weren’t piss stained cobbles and there were no hands pushing him down. Instead there was just the swelling richness of sensation and the satisfying weight of Mycroft against his tongue. 

And it turned out that he might not hate giving fucking blow jobs. He might just hate giving blow jobs to fuckers. Which was such a reasonable sodding explanation for the last two decades of his life that he hated it on principle. He jerked away as a roil of nausea swept over him as the implications of that revelation dawned. He flinched as fingers ran over his cheek in gentle question, and he shoved them away with a terse jerk of his head. Because panic, and self-disgust, and stupid bloody grief were clawing their way up his throat, and the last thing this moment needed was any more fucking feelings in the mix, so Mycroft’s solicitous concern could piss right off. 

Unable to go anywhere near what would be a knowing gaze and no where near brave enough to reach for his clothes and run like some fucking school girl with virtue fluttering, he pressed his face into the nearest expanse of skin and fought for control. Mycroft’s stomach was slicked with a thin layer of sweat and that familiar scent, along with the gradually slowing rhythm of Mycroft’s breathing calmed him. He tensed as a hand curved around his shoulder, and resisted the gentle urging at first, but knowing there was no fucking dignified way out of this he shuffled his way back up the bed. 

The room was perfectly dark now, the bedside lamps dimmed, and as he settled onto his back he pressed his fingers into his eyes, relishing the pain and the cleansing swirl of bright colours. Firm, gentle hand prised them away, and he let Mycroft roll him so they faced each other and he could slide an arm around his waist. 

“Sorry,” Malcolm found himself muttering as he scrunched his eyes tightly closed, as though if no sight leaked in through the lids, this simply wasn’t happening. “Do you want me to…” he asked trailing off as he began to squirm a hand between their bodies.

“Hush,” Mycroft instructed softly as he caught the hand and twined their fingers together. This time Malcolm didn’t even bother to fight, relaxing instantly under the hard press of Mycroft’s grip and lifting his face to meet the offered kiss. Because there was no fucking point resisting this now. Any sense of pride and dignity had been on the fucking critical list since he stepped into an expensive chauffeured car, and they’d both flat-lined a few minutes ago. And so with only a slight twinge of apprehension for how he’d feel about this in the days to come, he ran his fingers through Mycroft’s soft flyaway hair and kissed him slowly, letting Mycroft’s hand be the one to twist awkwardly between them and find a corresponding rhythm. Something focused and unhurried and so fucking Mycroft that it almost hurt to acknowledge. 

He fell first, biting into the skin of Mycroft’s shoulder as he came. His own climax left him breathless, but the feel of a finger lifting his chin and the emotion in those blue eyes as Mycroft pulsed against him moments later, left him shaken and fighting the need to seek and offer comfort. 

Mycroft clung to him for a few minutes anyway, gathering his breath and perhaps himself before he rolled away. Malcolm turned onto his own back and listened to the gentle slide of draw rollers, unsurprised as a hand ran over his chest and stomach wiping away the evidence of their pleasure. Throwing the wipes toward a wicker bin, Mycroft settled back onto the bed, and made a half-hearted effort to untangle a sheet as he curled himself against Malcolm’s side, knee coming to rest over his right thigh. 

Malcolm let himself rest in the half embrace, trailing his fingers lazily over Mycroft’s upper arm, bending to press his lips to the pale circle of his vaccination scar. As his own body began to cool and the weight of Mycroft’s grew heavier he eased himself from the bed, intending to hunt out a cigarette from his jacket, before remembering it was half a fucking mile away on the porch coat stand.

“If you haven’t got fags up here I’m going be royally pissed off,” Malcolm warned as he slipped into his shirt, the hem of the cotton tickling his hipbone as he fastened the buttons, leaving the neck open as he reached for his boxers.

“Top drawer,” Mycroft said as he gave up on his near doze, rolling onto his back with a sigh and watching languidly as Malcolm retrieved the half empty pack and the lighter that lay by its side. “Window,” he added in unnecessary command, Malcolm already moving over to the curtained opening where he drew the heavy fabric aside, a wall of cold air sinking into the room. 

Opening the leaded casement Malcolm leaned his elbows on the frame, cupping his hands around the lighter as he dipped the cigarette tip into the flame and drew in a grateful drag of nicotine. The rain had stopped, but the air still hung heavy with moisture and the smoke trail he blew vanished almost instantly. And though it was December it could have been any dank day, the air almost autumnal beneath the insulating mass of grey cloud. Somewhere out there, miles away beyond the limits of this place, the air on a night like this would smell fresh and clean, dampness teasing up the rich scents of earth and soil. But here it smelt of dirt and car fumes and the diesel of lumbering busses 

“How did you know where to find me?” Malcolm asked suddenly. “Tonight,” he clarified glancing back into the room.

Instead of answering, Mycroft eased himself from the bed, retrieving his dressing gown from the back of the door before joining Malcolm at the window, using the movement as an excuse for his silence. He cast a sideways glance at Malcolm as he considered his answer aware that the truth wouldn’t be well received. That he knew all the battles that raged through those sea-storm eyes each and every day. And though he didn’t yet know all the soldiers and generals, nor could yet predict Malcolm’s mercurial tempers precisely enough to discern his likely actions with accuracy, he still knew enough. Knew enough to know that a lonely, isolated man nearing his forties, with two unsuccessful journalistic careers behind him, and the uncertain future of a third before him, would yearn for the calm solidity of days long past. And that a man so free with his emotions and yet so afraid of them too, would find a day of Obligation a satisfactory way to absolve himself from the decision to seek consolation in a ritual he hoped was meaningless. And he would never of course observe that such a lonely, isolated figure, finding himself in the sudden sharp reality of a London night, as old carols and old ghosts still rang in his ears was an easy mark. Someone who could be readily drawn into uncharacteristic emotion by the temptation of further solace.

“The most actively socialist church in London, the spire of which is visible from your office window and which you pass twice a day as you walk too and from Leicester Square station?” Mycroft asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“Don’t fucking piss around,” Malcolm objected, irritation furrowing his forehead, “you know what I mean.”

“Doesn’t everyone go to church at Christmas?” Mycroft said as he reached out to smooth Malcolm’s brow, which resisted his gentle efforts. “I didn’t know,” he said, conjuring a lie from likely facts as easily as breathing. “I was intending to invite you for a drink earlier, and so I rang your mobile phone. Which was switched off. Given that you have answered that phone in the shower and from a public convenience, that meant you’d either drowned in the Thames and the phone had died with you, or you were in a place where phones were not permitted. At 11.30pm on Christmas Eve the most likely explanation was a church service. The bedside of a dying relative came second, but the odds of that were long enough to be initially discounted. So happily omitting tragic circumstances I simply asked Morris to drive me to St Martin’s.”

“I could have been on the fucking tube,” Malcolm said as he stared down at the glowing tip of his cigarette.

“The last tube on the Piccadilly line this evening left Hounslow at 9.58,” Mycroft said. 

“You’re very fucking annoying,” Malcolm said without apparent heat. 

“Noted,” Mycroft said evenly. “Does it upset you?” he asked a moment later realising the irritation he’d expected his comment to generate hadn’t arisen. 

“Why? Are you going to stop?” Malcolm asked blandly.

“Unlikely,” Mycroft agreed, the admission earning him a small, unexpected smile. 

Malcolm turned into the room, dangling the lit cigarette in a direction that was loosely similar to the open window and rested a hip against the heavy stone of the deep sill. He looked over at Mycroft as he contemplated the question and then back out into the night. Eventually he glanced back with a sigh and a resigned, almost defeated expression. 

“What just happened upsets me more,” he said with acid honesty. “Candidly?” he said a beat later, “I may have just realised there’s a certain freedom in knowing you see more than I’d like, but still want…” he said, trailing off as he gestured toward the bed. “You don’t agree?” he asked as Mycroft purloined the cigarette from his fingers with a frown of his own and drew in a breath, holding the smoke in his lungs for a moment before letting it out in a steady exhale. 

“I don’t believe I would find the reciprocal circumstance reassuring,” Mycroft said, gathering the dressing gown around him in a one handed grip as a sudden gust of wind whipped beneath the folds of the cloth.

“Animated fucking thesaurus,” Malcolm said with a shake of his head and he reached out to resettle Mycroft’s gown and tie the belt more tightly. “A simple no would have done,” he said as he pressed a brief kiss to Mycroft’s lips, tasting the hint of Marlborough Reds. “Though in future you could use that stupidly annoying psychotic ability to avoid…shit…” he said vaguely, once again waving his hand toward the room.

Stymied for a moment by the uncharacteristically ambiguous sentence Mycroft glanced quizzically at Malcolm as the cigarette was retrieved with a brief brush of fingers, the light hint of chagrin on Malcolm’s face resolving the matter. 

“Ah, you mean your minor existential crisis over the prospect of enjoying oral sex,” Mycroft observed. “Or was it the more general one prompted by my desire for things to be a little less combative tonight?” he asked. 

Raising a single finger Malcolm shoved the cigarette between his lips and let it hang there, drawing in several long breaths, utterly unconcerned as a cylinder of ash fell to the carpet. 

“Also, I think you meant psychic ability,” Mycroft corrected as he frowned pointedly at the grey smudge. 

“Nope, I meant what I fucking said,” Malcolm insisted as he tapped the cigarette and another pile of ash fell. 

“Yes well, apologies; I was somewhat distracted by the possibility of actually receiving oral sex for once,” Mycroft said with just a touch of tartness in his tone. “Do shut the window when you’re done with it; I note that point may already have been reached,” he said as he turned away and made his way back to the bed, tidying and tucking the sheets before he settled beneath the duvet. 

Unmoved by Mycroft’s irritation Malcolm glanced away, tossing the glowing butt down into the garden and lit a another cigarette. Perching himself on the sill he stared out at the roofs of the surrounding houses, over to where the high mansards of the terraces on Campen Hill Road seemed almost too elegant to be real, and where the grey lead of Georgian townhouses shone slick from the earlier rain. Drawing his eyes closer he stared down into the dark of the garden, the staff cottage sitting discretely at the far end of the grounds, half hidden by the towering trees that lined the boundary and the curve of the plot as it followed the road. Its windows were all dark and he found himself wondering what time they would be lit again in the morning. He glanced over at the bed, intending to ask Little Lord Fucktoy whether the staff were allowed Christmas off. But curled onto his side among the sea of pillows and the bulk of the winter duvet Mycroft looked strangely diminished, something ivory and fragile and lost, and the question died on his lips.

Finishing the cigarette he closed the window softly and dressed in silence, aware of the eyes that watched from the bed. As he opened the door to the landing where the moonlight from the atrium stained the carpet silver, he glanced back into the room and a slim hand snaked out from the covers. He answered the silent benediction, perching on the duvet as Mycroft sat up and demanded a goodbye kiss, the warmth of his bare chest a counterpoint to the cool air from the doorway. 

“Stay,” Mycroft said quietly. “I’m not working today; I would appreciate the company.”

Malcolm reached out a hand to smooth away an errant curl from Mycroft’s forehead and found himself wondering whether perhaps the dressings and props of Mycroft’s life weren’t all by choice. Whether this room and this house and all its affectations were just a stage-set created long before he was born. A family play, with a script he could never hope to deliver, and which would end its run with him.

He knew what he was being asked, because he spent his life building worlds for other people, crafting new realities from nothing but words and force of character. And it came easily, because he’d known since he was a bairn how to create a story that would sell. But he couldn’t face doing that here, inserting himself into this bleak, undecorated ode to Cromwell and trying to find a way to fill its spaces.

“I keep telling you, I’m not sleeping with you,” he muttered, shifting his eyes to glace at the foot of the bed and its moulded sleigh curve. 

“Does the continual enactment of that distinction really make a difference?” Mycroft asked with a soft sigh.

“Yes,” Malcolm said curtly as he stood up, carefully ignoring the fact that this repeated flight no longer gave him a love ‘em and leave ‘em, rush, but instead felt more like a betrayal. Like a lack of courage that was hurting them both. He lingered by the open door a moment, the cooler air of the landing creeping up around his neck and making him shiver, almost ready to throw his clothes back onto the dresser and slip back under the covers. Back into the warmth and the softness and a pair of deceptively strong arms. 

And he might have done so if tomorrow wasn’t what it was. But waking up with someone on Christmas morning was all kinds of things he couldn’t ever give; his own script he could never deliver.

Blue eyes watched him leave, their weight following him until he turned down the creaking stairs. He felt empty as he stepped out into the chill night air, the blue-white lights of tasteful trees glittering in scattered windows as he walked an uneven route through the quiet mews streets. At the traffic lights on Palace Corner he hailed a cab and rested his head against the cool of the window as they travelled east, out past Hyde Park and Regents Park and onto an eerily quiet Euston Road. 

The idling taxi engine sounded loud in the quiet street as he walked to his front door, and as it closed behind him with a soft click he breathed in the comforting silence of his own home. He wandered down the narrow hallway, past the flowing, abstract art that lined its wall and tried to pick up his evening from where it had been interrupted. But the light of the living room bounced unforgivingly off the white of the walls and the spines of countless books and videos were a brash collection of uncoordinated colour, and so he turned away and padded up the stairs in the weak darkness that could only be a city night. 

The sheets of his bed were cool, the duvet too light to trap warmth quickly, and the emptiness he’d felt on leaving Mycroft’s house was still with him. As he stared up at the ceiling he let himself examine the hollow, echoey space inside his chest, and tried to understand what he’d unwittingly left with Mycroft. Or what the bastard had simply reached in and taken whilst he was distracted by the press of tender lips. 

But as he lay there, he realised the really fucking disturbing thing was the space wasn’t quite empty. There was something there that when he looked at it, glowed and spat like the logs in Mycroft’s fire place. And the power of that warm, unwanted gift chilled him to the fucking bone.


End file.
